Mel King and Debbie Clark are going to try to ride their Ryan Duplex (recumbent tandem) to Walt Disney World in Florida. We are leaving on May 19, 2010 and hope to arrive by June 21, 2010. I hope we make it all the way.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Day 15 Flat at last and goodbye to Virginia

I am standing in North Carolina. the yellow line on the floor is the state line.

We left Stony Creek at 6:00 for our last day in Virginia. The road was indeed flatter than any we had been on thus far. We were making better time. Not so much because we were going faster but the ride was easier so the stops were less frequent. However, slowing us down is a back wheel that is out of true and rubbing a bit on the break with every revolution.

We stopped in Jarratt for a restroom and ate the yogurts we had with us and a banana. We are having a brake rub in the rear wheel. I think the wheel is slightly our of true. We stopped in Jarrett to look in the a phone book for a bike shop but there don’t seem to be any of them on our route. Perhaps when we get to Rocky Mount. Two people we met told us about a place in Emporia that might work on bikes be we decided that the rub was little enough and Emporia was complicated enough that we passed.

We continued on until Skippers where we stopped at a run down grocery store/gas station (no rest room) where a woman told us about a Lottery Sale place a few miles down the road. We found it. Strange, the state line ran right through the building. Buy Virginia lottery tickets on one side and North Carolina tickets on the other. There is a yellow stripe right through the building marking the state line. We ate and drank and rested but bought no lottery tickets.

We now knew that we had 10 miles to go, so, off we went. Georgia Pacific was across the street so we could see where all the logging trucks were going. We rode on, and, 10 miles later pulled into Weldon, North Carolina. We stopped at a Dollar General to get the phone number of a motel in the area but they did not have Wi-Fi so we rode the two miles over to I95 were we found the Orchard Inn. We had a coupon for $32.99 plus tax. It was about 1:30, our earliest day in which we made real milage. We checked in but went to lunch at a Waffle House before unloading. We also went to a minimart to get some nibbles for the next day.

After getting our stuff into the room, showering, unpacking etc., I got down to work. Interestingly although I could connect to their Wi-Fi, it gave me no internet access, so I logged into the Days Inn next door. I would rather not do that.

Today’s ride: We rode 46.1 miles (2 miles off route). The average speed was 8.3. We rode for 5:30 hours. We are now 603 miles into the trip.

Debbie’s emotionometer: Today’s mood was pleasant and marked by a feeling of satisfaction that we made it to North Carolina. GOODBYE VIRGINIA!

For those nature lovers in our audience, we saw several deer, about four that ran off when they spied us coming, and heard bob whites in the morning. In addition, the magnolia trees are starting to bloom.